It was a revelation, in the same way getting a physical after 40 is a revelation.
I texted Lex as soon as it sunk in.
Out-of-context text messages with sweeping existential generalizations are probably not the best way to touch base with old friends, but I had to know if I was on an island, and if so, how big the island was.
“Are we all just making it up?”
I had a falling out with someone I considered a friend, but realized was not.
This followed—immediately followed—a conversation with someone I considered a friend, but realized later that we didn’t really even know one another.
What did those encounters have in common, I asked myself for a few days. I replayed each conversation over and over, exaggerating the awkward parts more each time. One had been an outburst, my outburst, followed by the other’s continued dismissive and increasingly hostile public response. The other, a private conversation that had begun in a place of safety and excitement but had been carried forward by an undercurrent of power and religious guilt.
The common thread, the only one I could pin down, was the way I felt after each one. Head spinning, knocked onto my heels. A strange, new sensation, a mix of anger, shock, and awareness.
I think I reached self-actualization.
(Make that anger, shock, awareness, and pretense.)
I am drawn to marketing because I think a lot, and one of the main things I think about is what other people think. A few years ago I came to the realization that this was, along with predicting the future, my superpower. I texted Lex about that, too.
I am not good in groups. I am not good in public. I used to be. But now, I get exhausted from the work of trying to decipher people’s intentions. One shortcut I have found is to assume the worst. Of course this is a protective mechanism. It is one that I’ve had to build. It keeps me from trusting people or situations that are not trustworthy, because I kept finding myself in untrustworthy scenarios. Mostly, it was due to my eagerness to please, defuse, or escape conversations instead of engage and express. When I get nervous, I start agreeing to whatever someone says, just hoping to get out of the conversation and back to my pickup or recliner. Right? Right?
So, if I assume people are self-absorbed or disrespectful, I don’t have to be let down. If I am wrong, I am happily wrong. As long as I don’t tip my hand, I can be cynical and distant, and only when I find someone who speaks the same language or has the same humor or is frustrated by the same situations will I let enough of my guard down to, possibly, connect.
The result of this constant wall-building is that I have a stockpile of trust to be placed in a scarcity of people.
I don’t know if trust is earned or given. Seems like people have an opinion on that. While I don’t, I do know that within us is an innate desire to trust people. This desire can be misplaced and lead to pain, heartbreak, and even devastation. But the healing of that devastation will involve rebuilding that ability to trust—alongside a development of discernment as to who is actually trustworthy.
So, trust is good. I say that as an untrusting person.
But if I withhold it, it wells up and needs some place to be directed. My tendency is to place it—in large quantities—into certain people.
In both of the interactions I mentioned earlier, I had placed too much trust in someone.
I was not devastated—or even hurt—by these people. That’s what was so strange about the feeling I had at these pivotal points. Pain is obvious, but awareness is shocking.
Have you ever sat at a red light only to find out the green light isn’t working? So the red light goes off and nothing happens?
Worse, have you ever driven through a green light when the driver checking their phone in the intersecting lane wasn’t paying attention to their red light?
When the thing you trust fails, it’s difficult, but understandable.
When the person you trust fails, it’s difficult, and painful. But eventually, you at least understand the cause of the failure, and have somewhere to put the blame.
But when you realize it’s not the other person who has failed, but you, that’s the wind-knocked-out feeling I had. I gave more trust than was earned—like pouring a gallon of water into an 8 ounce cup, it was unreasonable. Illogical. It was unfair.
It was not fair to expect anyone to know more—so much more—than I know. After all, I know the future.
My logic has always been, whether I admitted it or not, that if I trust someone, that must mean they know the future plus more.
It turns out that it’s not their knowledge I trusted, it was their confidence. And by confidence, I mean arrogance.
There are people—the people who are loud and successful enough to mistake their success for ability—whose confidence outruns their knowledge by so much that they lose sight of reality.
These people are easy to follow.
If you were lost in the proverbial desert, with a group of other people, who would you choose to follow? The person who, lying, says, “Follow me, I know where to go!” Or the person who, honestly, says, “I can’t be sure, but we have to try this direction if we’re going to have a chance.”
The fact that you don’t know who is lying or honest means you must choose the one who tells you they can help. It would be foolish to do otherwise.
But eventually, you’ll realize they were lying. Probably, they were even lying to themselves. But survivorship bias means that the ones who are around and say they know sure look like they know. So that’s who we follow.
I don’t blame many of these people for believing themselves. They are often trapped. They have to keep up appearances, or maintain credibility, or fake it until they really do make it.
And while you’re probably imagining someone sinister right now, I’ve pretty much described what it is to be a parent. So take it easy on us!
No, the pain is not being lied to. The pain is realizing you let yourself be lied to. Worse, that you went looking for it.
My devastating realization was that I can’t know what people are thinking—mind-reading is not possible. I can guess, and even tell myself I am right. But I can’t actually do it.
The accompanying realization was that I can’t predict the future—neither can they—no one can. If I make a guess and I’m right, okay. But that’s just what humans do—anticipate. Hopefully better and better with age, but it’s never actually knowing the future.
It turns out that what I always considered my superpowers were just cognitive distortions.
“If your every sentence admits a doubt, your writing will lack authority.” Strunk & White p. 20
“If your pastor tells you every Sunday what an awful sinner he is, then pretty soon you’ll start to wonder if he should be your pastor!” James Heflin
This is such a strange dance we are doing, dear reader. I am at that point in life where I know some things well, and I assume everyone knows them as well. But there’s so much in this big terrifying broken stupid beautiful world that I don’t know. You don’t want me to list those things, or tell you how much I don’t know. You’re here, after all, to receive something.
And ignorance is, of course, nothing.
So here are my options:
Make something up. At least then it’s a something. And if I really try, I can give you the context, experience, stories, and body language that will let us both agree that I know what I’m talking about—which is more than you. This is probably more easily described as “Marketing.”
Stick to what I know.
Option 1 is a rope bridge above a death-deep canyon. And although I can tell you to ignore the “noise” that is actually fraying rope, there will come a point where you will drop, just like I did, and find yourself falling.
Hopefully, you’ll have a friend like Lex willing to text you back with helpful words.
Or, if we choose Option 2, you’re going to have to bear with me when I tell you authoritatively about something you know more about than I. This is just how it has to work.
The problem—and the solution—is that I’m not content with what I know. So, I’ll learn until this pasture-dented brain can’t learn anymore. And when I know something—really know it—I’ll let you know, too.
What I can’t do is fake it. What I have to do is tell it.
Maybe it will make a connection for you, to see the thing in a different, new, better way. Maybe it’s not relevant right now, but someday, it will click into place, a rusted old tumbler in a lock you didn’t know needed opening.
I’m willing to swing and miss.
You’re just going to have to trust that I’m not making it all up.